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The Book of Symbols: Carl Jung’s Catalog of the Unconscious

The Book of Symbols: Carl Jung’s Catalog of the Unconscious
by Kirstin Butler Why Sarah Palin identifies with the grizzly bear, or what the unconscious knows but doesn’t reveal. A primary method for making sense of the world is by interpreting its symbols. We decode meaning through images and, often without realizing, are swayed by the power of their attendant associations. Beginning in the 1930s, Jung’s devotees started collecting mythological, ritualistic, and symbolic imagery under the auspices of The Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS), an organization with institutes throughout the U.S. You can browse through ARAS via a list of common archetypes, or search by word, producing a cross-indexed result with thumbnail images and a timeline of where and when that idea appeared throughout history. Nonetheless, to access this treasure trove you still have to be a member of ARAS online, or take trip to one of its four physical locations. Donating = Loving Bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings takes hundreds of hours each month. Related:  SimboliPhilosophy

The symbol of the Swastika and its 12,000-year-old history The swastika is a symbol used by of one of the most hated men on Earth, a symbol that represents the slaughter of millions of people and one of the most destructive wars on Earth. But Adolf Hitler was not the first to use this symbol. In fact, it was used as a powerful symbol thousands of years before him, across many cultures and continents. For the Hindus and Buddhists in India and other Asian countries, the swastika was an important symbol for many thousands of years and, to this day, the symbol can still be seen in abundance - on temples, buses, taxis, and on the cover of books. The word ‘swastika’ is a Sanskrit word (‘svasktika’) meaning ‘It is’, ‘Well Being’, ‘Good Existence, and ‘Good Luck’. A Sanskrit scholar P. In Buddhism, the swastika is a symbol of good fortune, prosperity, abundance and eternity. On the walls of the Christian catacombs in Rome, the symbol of the Swastika appears next to the words “ZOTIKO ZOTIKO” which means “Life of Life”. By John Black Related Links

John Updike on the Universe and Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing wondered Stephen Hawking in . This inquiry has long occupied scientists , philosophers , and deep thinkers alike, culminating in the most fundamental question of why there is something rather than nothing . That, in fact, is the epicenter of intellectual restlessness that sets out to resolve in ( ). Reflecting on his many conversations with philosophers, theologians, particle physicists, cosmologists, mystics, and writers, Holt puts things in perspective: When you listen to such thinkers feel their way around the question of why there is a world at all, you begin to realize that your own thoughts on the matter are not quite so nugatory as you had imagined. [T]he laws amount to a funny way of saying, ‘Nothing equals something,’” Updike said, bursting into laughter. Taking a jab at the “beautiful mathematics” of string theory, Updike echoes the landmark conversation between Einstein and Indian philosopher Tagore , exclaiming: Beautiful in a vacuum! What a lovely conceit!

10 Spiritual Symbols You MUST Know Spiritual symbols are everywhere in our world! In fact they’re so pervasive, it’s almost hard to distinguish- and know- about them all. Luckily, we’ve done the work for you. SEE ALSO: Understanding Buddhism: 10 Reasons It’s NOT A Religion Hamsa Hamsa is the Hebrew word meaning “five”, and is represented with a palm-shaped amulet and an eye in the middle of the palm. Used by many societies throughout history, it’s purpose is to ward off negative energy and the “evil eye”, a malicious stare that’s said to cause unluckiness, illness, or even death. Many religions have used this symbol for their own purposes, including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. The Flower of Life This symbol could be considered king in sacred geometry! Said to contain all the patterns of creation in it, the Flower of Life is possibly the most ancient symbol on this list, used since the time of the Sumerians (the first civilization in the world). Yin Yang Pentagram Dharma Wheel CHECK IT OUT: Tibetan Book of the Dead Om

Why the multiverse is all about you - The Philosopher's Zone In general, quantum physicists don't have much truck with big conceptual schemes. But one of their own has broken rank. Christopher Fuchs tells Joe Gelonesi how a particular school of 20th century philosophy helps him make quantum leaps. Quantum mechanics can be tough to get your head round. It was something I had probably said many times. Christopher Fuchs is an exception. Fuchs holds solid physics credentials, however. He lives and breathes his specialisation, as instanced in extensive email debates and discussions with fellow physicists—interchanges running into the thousands of pages. The practical applications cause little bother, as Fuchs notes. Everyone seems in harmony over what quantum equations predict, but raise what they might be telling us about the nature of reality, and group solidarity breaks down. So what do most quantum scientists take away from their handiwork? 'Our universe is one of a very large collection. And the connection to William James?

Numbers and their Meanings Powerful Sacred Jewelry and Talismans Masterfully Crafted by the Known Artist - David Weitzman Numerology | Kabbalah | Amulets Numbers and Their Meanings Fibonacci Number: In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers form a sequence defined by the following recurrence relation. Zero Zero is a powerful number which brings great transformational change, sometimes occurring in a profound manner. Zero represents the Cosmic Egg, the primordial Androgyne - the Plenum. Before the One (meaning the Source--not the number) there is only Void, or non-being; thought; the ultimate mystery, the incomprehensible Absolute. Cultural References Taoism: It symbolizes the Void; non-being. Buddhism: It is the Void and no-thingness. Kabbalism: Boundless; Limitless Light; the Ain. Pathagoras saw zero as the perfect. Islamic: Zero is the Divine Essence. Zero Number Fibonacci Numbers History of Zero Middle East By the mid 2nd millennium BC, the Babylonians had a sophisticated sexagesimal positional numeral system. Greece Rome India

Algorithmicity, Islamic Art, and Virtual Philosophy: Thoughts on Laura Marks’ ‘Enfoldment and Infinity’ | Networkologies One of the most incredible works of architecture I’ve ever seen: The Hall of the Two Sisters in the Alhambra, Granada. The dome is composed of a multitude of tiny, pixel-like cells known as muquarna. “The universe is not dualistic, but folded, so spirit is separated from matter only by degree” – Laura Marks, Enfoldment and Infinity: An Islamic Genealogy of New Media Art (2010, p. 271). As someone deeply invested in using networks to understand a wide range of phenomenon, I was thrilled to see Laura Marks’ new book Enfoldment and Infinity: An Islamic Genealogy of New Media Art. How sameness can give rise to diversity: Interactive architecture that changes shape as you move within it, my own photograph, from the great mosque of Cordoba, Spain. Marks’ goals, however, are wider than an introduction to philosophies under-studied in the Euro-American world. Marks’ Algorithmic Ontology: Infinity, Information, and Image Marks starts off her work by describing her ontology of enfoldment. Like this:

Ancient Symbols, meanings of symbols from Ancient Egyptian, Celtic, Greek, etc. Think big, be free, have sex … 10 reasons to be an existentialist I was a teenage existentialist. I became one at 16 after spending birthday money from my granny on Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea. It was the cover that attracted me, with its Dalí painting of a dripping watch and sickly green rock formation, plus a blurb describing it as “a novel of the alienation of personality and the mystery of being”. No one can be completely sure what existentialism is, since its own chief thinkers disagreed about its tenets and many of them denied being existentialists at all. They worked their philosophy out carefully, but their followers often treated existentialism more as a style or attitude than a set of beliefs. I am convinced that existentialism should be seen as more than a fad, however, and that it still has something to offer us today. 1 Existentialists are philosophers of living Sartre was so excited when he heard this that he literally turned pale, according to De Beauvoir. 2 Existentialists really care about freedom One is anxiety. Take technology.

Meaning of the Ankh, an Ancient Egyptian Symbol The ankh is the most well-known symbol to come out of ancient Egypt. In their hieroglyphic system of writing the ankh represents the concept of eternal life, and that is the general meaning of the symbol. Construction of the Image The ankh is an oval or point-down teardrop set atop a T shape. The most commonly repeated explanation is that it is a union of a female symbol (the oval, representing the vagina or uterus) with a male symbol (the phallic upright line), but there's no actual evidence supporting that interpretation. Funeral Context The ankh is generally displayed in association with the gods. There are also funerary statues of pharaohs in which an ankh is clutched in each hand, although a crook and flail — symbols of authority — are more common. Purification Context There are also images of gods pouring water over the head of the pharaoh as part of a purification ritual, with the water being represented by chains of ankhs and was (representing power and dominion) symbols. The Aten

Frank Wilczek on Beauty, Physics, and Philosophy We recognize beauty when we see it, right? Michelangelo’s David, Machu Picchu, an ocean sunrise. Could we say the same about the cosmos itself? Frank Wilczek, a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, thinks we can. Wilczek won the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering, with David Gross and H. I love its weirdness and strangeness and the fact that it’s the way the world actually works. Wilczek’s specialty is quantum theory, but the impact of his work has been apparent in cosmology—in the study of black holes, dark matter, and the age-old mystery of how something can arise out of nothing. Wilczek is not just a leading theoretical physicist but a student of philosophy and admirer of poet William Blake and Renaissance Italian architect Filippo Brunelleschi. You say there’s beauty in the design of nature. It is a scientific question. Does it matter to a scientist if the world is beautiful? I don’t think science is walled off from the rest of life. Yes. Yes.

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What Would Žižek' Do? Redeeming Christianity's Perverse Core In three recent books - The Fragile Absolute, On Belief, and The Puppet and the Dwarf - Slavoj Žižek calls on the Left to reclaim the Christian legacy from the religious Right. Read collectively, this series (each title published by three different scholarly presses) provides a sustained attack on two pervasive modes of ‘PC-ness’ - political correctness and perverse Christianity - that help perpetuate the current neoliberal consensus regarding the inevitability, and perhaps the desirability, of global socioconomic inequality. Focusing primarily on The Puppet and the Dwarf, the last and most substantive of the triptych, my reading focuses on four aspects of Žižek’s typically circuitous argument regarding Christianity’s potential as a progressive liberating force. Slavoj Žižek’s subtitle - “The Perverse Core of Christianity” - seems to promise an account of all that is corrupt in the Christian faith. Žižek, it’s worth noting, frequently uses postmodern as a term of abuse. Take George W.

Fascinating Chart Details The History of the Alphabet Most of us use the letters of the alphabet everyday, but did you ever stop to wonder how their shapes came to be? The history of the alphabet is fascinating, and each of the 26 letters has its own unique story. Matt Baker (of UsefulCharts) has designed a handy poster that documents the evolution of our familiar alphabet from its ancient Egyptian Proto-Sinaitic roots (c. 1750 BCE) up to present day Latin script. The limited edition Evolution of the Alphabet chart shows how early shapes and symbols eventually morphed to become the ABCs we know today. While some letters are recognizable quite early on, others have little resemblance at all. The letter “A” for example, began as an Egyptian hieroglyphic that looks like an animal head with horns. The letter “C” was originally shaped like a boomerang or hunter’s stick. You can buy the Evolution of the Alphabet chart and check out more of Baker’s poster designs on the UsefulCharts website. All images via Matt Baker / UsefulCharts.

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